


Abnegation

by kjack89



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Divergent Fusion, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Divergent AU, M/M, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-24
Updated: 2014-03-24
Packaged: 2018-01-16 21:14:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1362010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kjack89/pseuds/kjack89
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Divergent AU, set before the events in the books. Enjolras is trying to lead a factionless uprising, and Grantaire...well, he's just there for Enjolras.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Abnegation

**Author's Note:**

> I strive to make even my crackiest AUs accessible to those unfamiliar with the source material, but this one got away from me in that regard. Which is to say it probably won't make a ton of sense unless you're read the Divergent trilogy, but then again, I could be wrong.
> 
> Set at some point before the events in the Divergent trilogy during an invented factionless uprising.
> 
> Usual disclaimer: I own nothing but a fleeting wish for a canonical OTP where no one dies.

I look down at the spot Enjolras has chosen to build the primary barricade, to take the fight directly to Erudite, which is a good thirty feet below the elevated train tracks. This wouldn’t be so bad, except that the train is currently moving, and quickly. But jumping out is the fastest way, so I adjust my grip on the door. “Almost time.”

“Grantaire, you’re crazy!” one of the factionless shouts at me.

I just trade my signature grin with Enjolras, who rolls his eyes but also smiles, just a little, which coming from him means more than anything else. “We’re not crazy,” I tell the factionless, just before we’re about to jump out of the train. “We’re Dauntless.”

It’s not true. Well, I mean, technically it was true. We chose Dauntless, Enjolras and I, because it was the fastest way to become factionless. But we weren’t  _true_  Dauntless, those adrenaline-junkies who I had seen jump off the moving train so many times at school.

Or at least, I’m not.

I don’t know if Enjolras really tested for Dauntless. I didn’t test for any faction. Divergent, they called it, when I got the results.

All sixteen-year-olds take the aptitude tests to find which faction they fit, whether it’s their birth faction or one of the other four. The five factions match the value each faction prizes most: for Abnegation, selflessness; for Amity, peacefulness; for Candor, honesty; Erudite, for intelligence; and Dauntless, for the brave.

But I don’t fit into one neat category. I tested for three: Erudite, Candor, and Abnegation.

The first two I can see, and I probably would have chosen one or the other if it came down to it. I was born into Erudite, after all, though my father has forever despaired at my lack of curiosity about some things, and lack of logic in others. He’s a mathematician himself, a field I could never really stand. Everything was so black and white, and I preferred to equivocate in grays. And Candor, well…speaking my mind has never exactly been much of a problem for me. More exactly, it’s always been a problem for me in that it’s gotten me in trouble because I don’t know when to shut up.

But Abnegation…

Abnegation makes no sense to me. That’s all about doing the right thing and not drawing attention to one’s self. I’m not selfless like the Abnegation. I never have been.

Enjolras, on the other hand…he’s about as selfless as one can be, always fighting the good fight, even in this, his drive to make our city a better place. He’s the one that got me into this, after all. He’s the only one that could get me into anything, really.

He’s the reason I chose Dauntless.

I was advised not to, when I was told I was Divergent. I was told to keep my head down, to pick one of the three factions that I had aptitude for, and to avoid Dauntless, where I would surely be discovered. Thankfully, I had no plans to stay with Dauntless long enough for them to discover anything.

The plan was a simple one, when it came to desertion. I don’t know who Enjolras talked to, specifically, if he had a contact among the factionless, but the plan was that Enjolras would join Dauntless, get a little bit of combat training, and get out before the end of the first phase of Dauntless training. The others in our group of friends would go to other factions to learn what they could so that when we all joined the factionless, we were as prepared as could be. And, well, I wasn’t assigned a faction. I chose Dauntless.

That’s the initial plan, at least, but Enjolras has more plans than that, big plans that involve an uprising of the factionless.

Honestly, I don’t care much about those plans. I never have. I care about Enjolras. I always have.

Our world values conformity, conformity that I’ve never quite managed. Between never really fitting in with Erudite to being labeled Divergent to, well, liking guys as well as girls, I’ve never aligned with anything in society. But I found friends at school among the group Enjolras named Les Amis. We were from different factions and different backgrounds, but we all worked together for Enjolras — or for the betterment of society, if you believed that sort of thing.

Enjolras is our leader by default, not just because he has the ideas and the voice and the fierce passion, but because his parents were Abnegation leaders and thus leaders of the city. You’d never expect him to be Abnegation, because he’s so very much not like the others of the faction. He doesn’t sit quietly with his head bowed like the other Abnegation do — he’s smart and gorgeous and strong and…well, you get the point. He even makes the Abnegation’s boring gray clothes look good (though thankfully he doesn’t follow their rules on short hair, as I would hate to see his blond curls cut).

And he’s the one who came up with the idea of joining with the factionless after our Choosing Ceremony.

See, perhaps more than anyone, Enjolras wants to overthrow the system. He doesn’t believe in the factions. He believes that we should be able to choose our own destinies outside of the factions. And the rest of our friends agree, and if Enjolras has his way, the factionless and the oppressed factions alike will arise to overthrow the city government and the faction system.

Or something like that.

At the moment, though, Enjolras and I are about to jump off of a moving train, and all thoughts about uprisings and the factionless are far from my my mind.

I grin at Enjolras once more before jumping off of the train.

* * *

 

Some of our friends have had a far easier time since Choosing Day, initiations that haven’t involved jumping off trains or learning how to use guns or anything like that. But I can’t really be jealous of them, because I got to spend my days in Dauntless with Enjolras, and I wouldn’t change that for anything.

I definitely wouldn’t trade the tattoo that I got my very first day in Dauntless. It’s great — curled script on my collarbone that proudly proclaims, “There is but one certainty: my full glass.” When Enjolras saw it, he pursed his lips and shook his head in disappointment, which really made it all the more worth it.

Of course, he didn’t see my second tattoo, a single word in much smaller script against my hipbone — “Believe” — but that isn’t really for him, anyway. It’s a reminder for myself.

And it’s a reminder that we need now more than ever.

Even among our friends, I can’t shake the feeling that everything is about to go seriously wrong.

In theory, it shouldn’t — everything is rather suspiciously going to plan. Our barricade is meant to block off the key access points to Erudite headquarters while leaving us a sightline to the park, and in that regard, we’re fine, but there’s a feeling in my gut like something is going to go terribly wrong.

After all, we number nine in Les Amis, and there’s a decent number of factionless with us, and granted, we’re all armed to the teeth (don’t even ask me how many guns Combeferre has stockpiled), but it’s nothing like the numbers Enjolras planned on. I would mention this, but I value what little thought Enjolras gives to me far too much for that.

Thankfully — or not — I don’t have to say anything, because word comes in from a different source, and I can tell by the ashen look on Enjolras’s face as he receives the factionless messenger that the news is not good. “We’re the only barricade left,” he announces to the group, and everyone goes still.

The factionless messenger shares the news, since Enjolras seems incapable of giving details, his eyes sweeping through the crowd as if looking for a solution. The Dauntless have aligned with the Erudite to quash the rebellion, and the factionless, rather than stand and fight, have chosen to flee and protect themselves. Which leaves only our little barricade outside the Erudite headquarters.

I see Enjolras skirt the edge of the crowd and head to the Corinthe, a café in the park that we’ve established as our headquarters for the barricade. Part of me wants to just let him go, let him have his alone time, but the other part of me, the selfish part of me, the part of me that still cannot fathom testing for Abnegation, wants to go after him, to offer him what failed attempts at comfort that I can.

Naturally, that part wins.

I don’t know if I expect to see Enjolras crying or raging or what. I find him sitting quietly, staring at the wall. “Hey,” I say, quietly, and he looks up at me, surprised.

“Hey.”

I fiddle with the cuff of my blue shirt — even after choosing Dauntless and declaring factionless, I still prefer the color of my birth faction — before saying quietly, “You know you did everything you could, right?”

Enjolras just snorts and shakes his head, looking away from me before saying thickly, “I somehow doubt that will reassure our friends when we’re all captured or worse.”

It takes a moment for me to realize that Enjolras sounds like he’s fighting back tears, and my heart plummets. “Hey,” I say, reaching out to tentatively touch Enjolras’s shoulder. “It’ll be ok.”

His laugh is harsh, but I don’t flinch from that, but instead from the look in his eyes as he glances up at me. “Do you actually believe that?”

I shrug. “I don’t really believe in anything. Just you.”

He jerks away from my touch, shaking his head. “You shouldn’t,” he mutters. “This — everything I’ve worked for and fought for, everything  _we’ve_  worked for — has gone to hell. And the factions will win.” He looks up at me again and tells me hollowly, “You wouldn’t understand. You’re Divergent.”

My mouth seems to go dry and I ask him in a croaking voice, “And what are you?”

I don’t know what answer I expect — certainly I’ve thought that he might be Divergent as well, because I can’t imagine him being just one thing — but I definitely don’t expect him to half-smile and tell me, “Factionless.”

But then he looks away and his face falls. “You should leave,” he tells me, tonelessly. “Go back to Dauntless, or go wherever. You shouldn’t have to stay here, when you never believed this.”

“I believe in you,” I tell him, honestly, but he just shakes his head. Desperate, I ask, “At least let me sleep here.”

I honestly don’t care what answer he gives to this, since I have no intention of going anywhere, but thankfully, he nods, albeit reluctantly. “If you must.”

There’s a thousand different things that I want to say to him, but instead I give him a small smile. “Thank you.”

He stands to head back to the barricade, but pauses to tell me, his voice still hollow, “You shouldn’t be thanking me. You have nothing to thank me for.”

“I don’t agree,” I tell him boldly, but he just shakes his head and walks away, and doesn’t hear me as I tell him, “I wouldn’t be anything without you.”

* * *

 

As it is, I actually do fall asleep in the Corinthe, and when I wake up in the morning, the worst has happened. Dauntless soldiers, or mercenaries, or whatever, clearly aligned with the Erudite, have stormed the barricade, and almost everyone is either dead or taken into custody.

But Enjolras is still alive, is inside the Corinthe, in fact, and as I slowly sit up, trying to make sense of what’s happening — of the bodies strewn through the café — I can see him clearly, his golden curls lit like a fiery halo in the early morning sun.

He’s alone, standing defiantly in front of the black-dressed Dauntless, but he won’t be alone for long.

It’s possible the most selfless choice that I could make, ensuring that Enjolras does not die alone, here at the end of all things, and I wonder for a brief moment if this is the part of me that does actually belong in Abnegation. But at the same time, it’s also the most selfish choice, since I’m not doing it for Enjolras.

I’m doing it because I don’t want to live in a world without Enjolras.

And luckily, I never really belonged in Abnegation anyway.

So I stand, and I cross to Enjolras, and I ask him quietly, “Do you permit it?”

Whether it’s selfish or selfless, whether it’s the part of me that’s Abnegation or Erudite or Candor or the part that’s Divergent, or hell, if it’s the part of me that chose factionless and Enjolras above everything, none of that matters as Enjolras smiles at me and takes my hand.

And for the first time, I think I understand what Enjolras meant when he talked about being able to pursue one’s destiny outside of the factions.

But then the Dauntless open fire, and Abnegation or not, Divergent or not, I fall next to Enjolras just the same.


End file.
